Guide to a Day Trip at Yilan with Kids (Part 1)

Just 1.5-2 hours away Taipei City, Yilan has a lot to offer. We were able to go to 7 places in one day but there are still a lot of places to discover. For the meantime, here are the places we were able to visit in a day and that includes travel time from Taipei already!

Mr. Brown Castle Cafe

Not your ordinary coffee shop, Mr. Brown fashioned this cafe to an English castle. I ordered a coffee latte and passion lime cake which was pretty good. My kids had their fill of gelato.

Best place to sit is outside the castle grounds so you can take in the fresh air and enjoy the view of the castle.

Too bad they didn't turn the inside of the cafe to look like a castle.

Best time to go is before 10am, so you can avoid the wave of tourists.

This windmill added another nice touch to Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown has a chain of cafes all over Taiwan and they have good 3-in-1 coffee packs you can purchase from groceries.

2. Lanyang Museum

The architecture of this museum is amazing! According to RTaiwanR, the building looks like a cuesta emerging from the surface of the lake. Cuesta (a ridge with a gentle slope (dip) on one side and a steep slope (scarp) on the other) is the outcome of colliding crustal plates and this sort of special landscape is common in north-east Taiwan, hence the design.

Inside you would see the an architectural feat of glass panels but they had an exhibit so I wasn't able to capture it on my cam.

You can go inside the main museum for a minimal fee and check out the current artist in feature. We didn't enter anymore since my kids aren't into arts. But you will be able to get into the lobby and access their interesting gift shop.

This is how it should look. Cool!

3. Shanzhai Monster Village, Yilan

Monster Village in Yilan (there is another one in Nantou) is a fun and kooky, food souvenir shop and restaurant. It is in a Japanese setting and is surrounded by uhmm, err, well, monsters. There are 2 huge ones and their food packaging carries these monsters as well.

The store lay-out is fun and you will be delighted with all the quirky packaged food items.

They have all sorts of delicacies from Taiwanese pineapple cakes, Japanese pillowy cheesecakes to dried seafood snacks. They also have an area of quirky toys like the claw machine.

These owls are filled with custards and are so yummy!

We had lunch here and ordered their smoked chicken and braised pork rice. The chicken is very juicy and has a mild taste to it so the braised pork rice went very well with it. They also have an 18 inch baguette sandwich but like true Asians, my kids preferred to have rice.